So Close
by HeiShui
Summary: AU What if Bella had never moved to Forks? Would everything had been the same? Would Edward and Bella ever have met?
1. Solitude

**Disclaimer:**** I do not own Twilight.**

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**_Solitude _**

"_It'll be fun."_

Hardly.

As much as I love Alice and her feeble attempts to cheer me up (though it doesn't work), leaving my family once in a while was my decision in the end. It's hard to be around them sometimes – always seeing two pairs of eyeballs where ever I turn. I knew Carlisle and Esme were worried about me – worried that I had been alone for too long, worried that I might never find someone important to me like they were to each other. But even during the ceaseless moving, my mask had never changed; I had never stopped wearing that same half-smile through my years of being alone. Too many endless years of monotony, too painful to count.

There was nothing wrong with me being alone, I just had to accept that there was nobody out there, human or otherwise, who could be anything more to me than family. I felt complete within myself. I had never longed for a mate, not even while I was human, and so my family shouldn't be worried about me. But whenever I turn to face them, always two sets of eyes stare back worriedly – Carlisle and Esme, Emmett and Rosalie, Jasper and Alice.

Ah, Alice. I suppose she had hoped something would have happened when we moved to Forks six years ago. Though it certainly wasn't her first time moving somewhere new, she seemed anxious at first. But as the school year approached the end of the semester, her excitement faded. I had never understood what had her worked up for so many months; perhaps a vision that had never come true, but it was gone now. Gone like so many normal other things.

"_You should go to New York."_

Why?

But it was nice to be away from them a while, even if they were only a few hour's drive away – even less with my maniac speeding.

Alice had promised me overcast weather. I had promised myself release. _"Have a good time,"_ Esme had said. I raised my eyebrows at this. Have a good time? After all these years of living with my mother, had she not gained any knowledge about my personality? Still, it was nice to confide in the solitude I had come to recognize for a few days. New York was an uncomfortably crowded city – depressingly so. Poor innocents had no idea of the danger that stalked them only meters away while they walked on the sidewalks, attending to their daily business. And of course, I was the one to suffer their brutal and morbid thoughts. My wonderful existence had yet again proved to be a burden. But if a burden was what I had to bear to purge, or at least lessen, the sins I had committed before, I would take it.

This was no vacation, being in this over-populated haven of heathen beings. Even I, the monster, was more civilized than them. I would have to hunt soon, as well, so as not to revert to my old ways and attack serial criminals. How fool of me not to have hunted sooner and come to this crowded city of so many people, so closely packed together. Even my luxury hotel room reeked of human stench and provoked me further into my thirst. This was the city of over eight million people, yet they had no wildlife more interesting than a few deer. Other than the zoos, which were of course, off limits. Even the newest of newborns could have known that.

I arrived back at my room from prowling some of the shadier areas of the island, places where tourists were not intended to go. However, I was no tourist and I was proud to say that my eyes still remained golden – however dark it was. I surveyed my image in the large mirror of my suite. The purple bruise-like shadows, similar to a human's lack of sleep, were more prominent than ever, marring the unbroken span of whiteness my face was. I looked at my features and sighed; how any human ever thought we were beautiful, I do not understand. I clearly looked brutal, monstrous, morbid even. Dangerous. My eyes clearly showed that. I sighed once more; humans were not so observant. Of course, normal humans don't normally have one hundred and ten years of experience. My lips were too thin, too often set into a permanent grimace; my cheekbones too sharp and angular, like great wings sticking out of a plain. And my hair such an unnatural bronze color, messy and disheveled. How could any person, human, monster, anything with a soul and anyone who was pure and innocent, love me? My family loved me, and I loved them as well, but we were only the eternally damned, forced to feed off of other creatures' lives in order to live. Well, not live, but to sustain ourselves and control ourselves from doing anything we might regret later. I wanted so badly to shatter that cursed mirror, to not look at my cursed self. I had to clench my fists in order to not break my own reflection.

I was so glad Carlisle had let me off of school this time. I don't think I would be able to bear another four grueling years – at least, not listening to petty child's minds. Their thoughts were so insufficient it was almost comical if I hadn't been hearing them for past hundred years or so. After Forks, I didn't know if I was able to stand those foolish girls chasing after me. One of the benefits of having a mate, although it did cause quite a scandal when the students found out about it. But still, _still_ I did not regret not finding mine. I was complete within myself, as I had told a worried Carlisle and Esme so many times. There was no one who could understand my internal grievings, my self-inflicted hate of what I was; nobody could comprehend the emotions and the frustration of listening to peoples' minds; no one who could know me well enough to cause me to love them, or vise versa. Although, still, many people tried.

I changed clothes, an unnecessary action. It was done more out of boredom than anything else. I was planning to go for a stroll around NYU's campus, although I had done this many times before. However, I had never applied because the weather was not quite cloudy enough for my family and I. The temptation of entering NYU's medical program was very promising. How many years had it been since I had last studied medicine? Perhaps something new had been added – a new treatment or perhaps a new drug that Carlisle did not yet know about. I wished that my skin did not sparkle like it did so I could go out effectively in the sun. It would make everything so much easier. But since when has our existence been easy? I looked out the large window; still dismally gray. I tried not to think about how this was an acceptable analogy to my never ending days. I grabbed my jacket on the way out, remembering just in time that a person walking outside in thirty five degree weather without a jacket was not normal. But, since when have I ever been normal?

The buzzing of thoughts grew louder as I stepped outside. I shoved them down; no need to hear meaningless, inane thoughts. I had enough things to think about.

What could Alice have been excited about? Was it a vision? Had there been something going on (or would be going on) that I didn't know about? Did the others know about it? Was there somebody coming? The Volturi? Another coven of vampires?

_Stop it._ I reprimanded myself. Even if there had been somebody coming, they obviously changed their mind. But I couldn't help but wonder; what if they had come? Would my existence be different than it was now? _Probably not_, I answered my own question. There was little that could change the rut I fell into, the methodical pulse I followed. Would it have been a human, or a supernatural being like myself? What would I have done with them? What would my family think of them – think of me? What if this newcomer had come, would I have a certain attraction to them? Would I have…fallen in love?

I've seen love; I've experienced it in other people's minds. I've watched it happen thousands of times, watched it happen to my own siblings. I've felt it through other people's thoughts, experienced it in their shattered memories. I've felt all kinds of it – from the feeble, unrequited loves to earth-moving, ground-shaking, undeniably unbreakably beautiful love. I've felt all the crushes and hormone-induced whims of the schoolyard to the desperate, hopeless love of modern tragedies. I've felt every single kind of love there is to feel in this Universe, yet I've never felt love for myself. And I don't want it.

I am _happy_, no matter what they see behind this mask of indifference. I don't need somebody else to confide in; I don't need the change that brings the supposedly perfect bliss love is. I don't need another mask to put on, I don't need more expressions to choose from. My life is fine the way it is, soul or not, no matter what Carlisle and the rest think of my unnaturally calm features. Just because I _show_ no emotion doesn't mean I don't _feel_ it. I don't feel a hollow, missing space in my chest where my heart used to beat like Carlisle says I'm supposed to feel when I don't have a mate; I don't feel like I need something to complete me. Maybe I never will, I don't know. I'm fine with the fact that I don't have somebody to "complete" me. I'm fine that I probably never will experience the kind of love that Carlisle and Esme and Alice and Jasper and even Rosalie and Emmett share. I've never wanted anyone other than my family and certainly not anyone in a romantic way. And perhaps I never will. Maybe I was destined to be alone from the minute Carlisle changed me, from the minute I was born, even. Maybe what Alice had seen would have given me something to look forward to in my numberless days, something to hope for and to care about. Maybe what Alice had seen was my – mate.

The wind blew hard against my back, sending a rush of warm (well, moderately warm to me) blowing against my jacket. I was glad it was blowing this way and not the other; this way I couldn't smell the delectable scents of the humans surrounding me. My thoughts drifted back to Forks again. Was something supposed to happen while we were there? Something greater than the frivolous schoolyard fetishes those dreadful teenagers in high school? What would have happened if the even Alice had been so excited about came true? Would I have met someone I would love? Would I have met the girl of my dreams? I didn't even know who the girl of my dreams was, much less what she looked like in my mind's eye. But I knew and kept the qualities stored in a private filing cabinet in a dark corner of my mind: warm, brave, trusting, innocent, and selfless, most importantly selfless. Maybe if that vision had come true, I would be in a different position right now. Maybe I would be somewhere in Alaska, kissing my girlfriend, or fiancé or wife. Maybe we could extend our boundaries beyond any stretched before. Maybe we could rid of my –

The breeze pushed against my chest lightly. I stiffened, waiting for the scent of hundreds of humans to envelope me in thirst. I waited. Nothing.

And then I realized a young woman, in her early twenties maybe, on the ground, her wide brown eyes open in surprise. She blushed. I quickly gathered her books which were strewn across the sidewalk, her binders showing she studied in NYU. Before she could blink, I handed the books to her. She blushed again, took them, and sped off in the same direction. I watched as her long dark brown hair disappeared into the crowd.

Who was this woman? Why had she not talked to me? Why had _I_ not apologized for being so careless and knocking her over? I tried to find her mind in the city of millions, and suddenly the incoherent buzz in my mind multiplied ten fold. But try as I may, I could not find the voice of that young woman. I could not find any thoughts that might have included her, either. But those two wide, chocolate-brown eyes stayed etched in my mind and engraved into my heart of stone.

I watched the crowd pass by me as I counted my endless days.


	2. Delusion

**_Delusion _**

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I couldn't leave you alone, mom. I'm sorry that I didn't realize you didn't want me around. I'm sorry that I didn't leave you when you wanted me to, even though you never said it. I'm sorry, Charlie, that I left you alone when I should have came. I'm sorry that I didn't move to Forks and keep you company. I'm sorry I didn't leave Arizona. I'm sorry that I didn't come to Washington. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being myself.

And now I'm back here; the place of my childhood summers. The place where I thought I despised and never wanted to come back to. The place of endless rain and fog and mist. The place of eternal green and forever gray. The place my father grew up in. The place my mother left. Forks, Washington.

I'm visiting Charlie like I have every summer since I was a child. He's met me at the airport and now we're driving from Port Angeles in his cruiser. I'm staring out the window in silence, watching the blurs go from gray to green. Eternal green.

Charlie is uncomfortable with me, I can tell. How could he not be? I chose to stay in Arizona despite his pleads of me staying with him for my last two years of high school. What a mistake that was. Renée, my ever scatterbrained mother, hadn't wanted me around with a new husband. She didn't want me to interfere with her relationship. And school was the usual. Except, no one bothered to smile at me any more when I sat down in my seat. The teacher's eyes slid past me except when they wanted me to answer a particularly difficult and impossible question, their eyes gleaming. The endless mockery of my drab wardrobe and the insults of my bookish behavior were not unprecedented, but it hurt nonetheless. The words my classmates spoke to me were not kind ones, and each phrase cut me like a tiny shard of glass, a minute razor; invisible but not unfelt. They pierced my heart in a way nobody has ever felt before; nobody because they have never been rejected countless times in countless ways, never stood in the corner alone while everybody had a partner, everybody had a life, everybody had a chance.

I'm back here in Forks, back at the house near the woods where Charlie lives, alone. I've started to comprehend just how secluded he was in my junior year. That was the year when things fell apart – more than they had before, anyway. The two grueling years of my life when socializing was at its peak was the two terrible years when I finally realized that people did not accept me for who I was; in fact, they had never accepted my personality, my schedule and my mindset. I had just never noticed before. I cursed myself a thousand times over for even beginning to hope for something more than I was the first seventeen years of my life, for being so oblivious to my peers and teachers. I wished during all of high school for it to end, for it to change, for it to become worthwhile. And just when things started to change – for the better or for the worse, school ended.

And college started. I suppose college isn't that bad though the work is tedious and repressing. However, the schedule is incredibly loose and I am free to do whatever I wish for most of the time. My teachers adore me since I have nothing better to do than study and read my textbooks before classes start. Being in New York City helps; the scenery is composed of mostly giant towers of iron and the gray slabs of never-ending concrete. Gray and dismal, though so different than the refreshing sky here in Forks where the gray is endless and clean.

My room is the same; my crib replaced by an ancient bed, the wallpaper peeling off the walls. I'm glad that I'm only staying for a few days instead of weeks. The silence is already starting to get uncomfortable and I've only been in Charlie's presence for a few hours. I know he hasn't been around people very much. And I still can't forgive my mother for the mistakes she's made over the years. The biggest ones were obvious: getting married, having me. And then there were the little ones, or maybe they were not so tiny: leaving Charlie, getting married again and pushing me away in her life. The big ones and even the little ones have all made an impact on me in my life – in the long run, at least. I can't forget and forgive my mistakes either, and even though they haven't really been life-changing, they have still hurt everyone surrounding me, Charlie the most. I suppose not moving to Forks when I intended to is what really caused him to be so withdrawn, knowing that I chose my Renée over him so many times. But I can't help but wonder what I've wondered so many times in the past years: would moving to Forks have changed my life?

I sigh and start to unpack my nearly-empty suitcase. There are barely any clothes in there though it's almost half my entire wardrobe. There is and _was_ nothing in Forks, and even if I came, it wouldn't change. It was just a tiny town that my biological father lived in. The people would still be the same; they would still all make fun of me and tease me for my eccentricity. No body would take interest in me. I was only a plain-Jane girl with no friends and no life outside of school. Nobody would accept me for who I was. But what about La Push? Would the Native Americans there see something in me with their spiritual and ancient ways? Could there be something in this dismal state that could have captured my interest if I had moved here, four years ago? Would there really have been something interesting and worthwhile and magnificent to look at when I moved to Forks, no matter how small or how big?

I'm deluding myself again, thinking that I could be of interest to anybody. I could never be, no matter if Renée told me I was the most special girl on the face of the earth every year before I was twelve. Even if Charlie loved my company each summer while I visited him. Even if the immature schoolboys in my elementary school had strange one week crushes on me. I am just Bella Swan, and I always will be.

The light blue walls suddenly didn't seem very inviting. It reminded me too much of my childhood – all the painful memories I had been able to repress for so long. Coming to Forks was just like inviting them back, inviting all the years of rejection back into my memory span, out of the dark corners and into the light of my brain. I wanted to focus on my present, starting from the day I began college. When I started fresh.

College was a new experience for me. No body there knew me. Nobody there had grown up with me and watched my clumsiness and my shyness. They'd never seen how I shied away from any attention and how I stumbled over myself. They didn't know me for who I was; they knew me instead by the person I transformed myself to be when I started college. I hate to hide myself from all those people, all my classmates and teachers, but I couldn't afford the rejection again, not after those two years of high school. Not after I had been rejected time and time again, so freshly.

I look at the clock. It's almost dinner time and I know Charlie can't cook much. I make my way down the stairs, nearly tripping on the last step, but catch myself just in time. I rummage through the cabinets and find a package of dried pasta. The refrigerator is almost empty but I manage to find some canned tomato sauce. The freezer is stocked with fish. I set a pot to boil and open the sauce to put in the microwave. The familiarity of this kitchen is unnerving; it's ripping apart the seams in my mind that I had so carefully stitched together. It feels like home – like I belong here even though I haven't spent more than a year in this kitchen, in this entire house. It feels right and _nice_, like I'm whole for once even though I can tell something is still missing. The water boils and I put in the pasta, stirring it and waiting. I lean against the counter. It feels wonderfully cool against my back. I wait for time to pass by as the pasta cooks. Sounds of tonight's game are blaring from the living room television, Charlie watching every move they make. Outside, the dimming light of the sun filtered through the trees. It looked so serene and beautiful, beautiful in its eeriness, and it made me feel content. More content than I've felt in a long time.

"Dinner's ready," I call to Charlie. The television sounds stop and I hear his feet scuffle against the linoleum floor as I put two bowls of pasta on the table. He watches me as I take the sauce out of the microwave and pour it over the noodles. "Thanks, Bells," he says, "I really miss your cooking." I nod.

We eat dinner in silence. I'm almost done with mine and Charlie is on his second helping. He shovels his dinner down his throat – I wonder how he's not burning his mouth. The only sounds are the click of metal against ceramics and our thoughtful chewing. It's not the same as solitude; here, I'm actually wanted. Here, my company is silently appreciated. Finally, Charlie leans back on his chair and clears his throat. I put my bowl in the sink and wash it out.

"Too bad you couldn't move here, Bells." He starts. I stiffen, my back to him. We've had this conversation many times over the past four years. It's become tedious and I hate having to fight with Charlie. "You know, I think you could have been happy here." It's the same as always. I couldn't be happy here in Forks – or anywhere. I could never be truly happy. There's always something wrong with me, always something that's missing. I just don't want to be the one who gets left alone all the time. I can't fight it though, the loneliness. It's just part of who I am. It's how I was born. It's how I'll always be. "You know, there was a really nice family here before. I think you would've made friends with them. The Cullens." I turn around in interest. He's never mentioned a specific family before. "They were very nice – very polite despite the fact that they had five adopted teenagers. Five! Can you imagine that?" I gaze at him curiously. That is quite odd. "And the father was the doctor in the hospital here. Good man. Good thing he was married though; I can imagine the chaos that would've broken out between the female nurses in the hospital. All very good looking, those Cullens. It's a shame they had to move away."

The Cullens. I've never heard of them before. Of course, Charlie's never really talked about my decision before without me ending up yelling at him. They sound interesting; I wonder what they were really like. I wonder if I would've befriended me if I had moved here. But I'm deluding myself again. Nobody wants to be with me. It's a known fact of the universe. I'm just Bella Swan – the girl who will always be alone. Always.

"That's nice, dad. And it's too bad that they moved away." Charlie nods absently, his eyes wandering over to the living room again. "I'm going to go outside for a little bit – just around the house. Is that all right?"

He nods again. "Don't be out too late."

I walk out of the kitchen and grab my jacket. The air outside is clean and fresh and humid. It's cool and I wrap my jacket around me. I look up; it's twilight. The time between night and day. The time of beginnings and endings. The sky is darkening and it looks like it's about to rain. I lay down on the grass. It's wet and it stains my jeans but it feels nice. I gaze up as the stars start to appear. They twinkle even with all the trees obscuring my vision of the sky.

There's rustling in the trees to my left. I sit up, alarmed. It rustles again, louder this time. "Who's there?" My voice is frantic. I see a little movement in the bushes. Something catches my eye, in between the leaves of the trees and undergrowth. Then, as quickly as it comes – it vanishes. I lay back down, telling myself it's all another delusion. Because that's all I'll ever do: delude myself into thinking that something's actually going to happen to me, something that's worthwhile. But that one shot of color stays in my mind.

A flash of topaz.


End file.
